bryston
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Non-chinese assembly
ohfourohnine
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Fact is, Bryston, there is good, bad, and indifferent design and manufacturing work being done everywhere in the world today. Wish selecting what one might want to buy was as easy as knowing where it was assembled, but it's not. So far as China is concerned, they are turning out some of the best and some of the worst stuff available.

Welcome to the forum. Are you considering any particular item? If so, let us know what it is. Someone here probably has some experience with it.

bryston
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Thanks for invitation! Speaking to the point I can impress my experience using an english, germany, US and asian devices. Being an analyst but for the amateur things not for professional I like to compare the sound quality of a different hi-fi makers. By the way most of all I stuck impressed by US great CD-player by Adcom. I don't want to write about inner body of devices as printed plates, chips, DACs, wires of assembly and an engineeing at all for the sounding only. This thing was great and as I'm saying when I feel slim beauty in music... I've heard the hell's and paradise pipies at once as Stanley Kubrik "Clockwork orange" main hero Alex said... Then I tried to find some detailed nuances as blind as open-eyed listenings using cheap and uncheap asian techniqes but sorries... Yes an english makers must keep economy in all like Rega does not using Remote Control in Brio-3, using one and only case from time to time but never mind if we love music and isn't an apperence of hi-fi. Detailed tellings can be continued more if the respect forumers would like to listen about my past experiences. Glad to myself of discussing this topic.

Welshsox
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Hi

It seems very difficult to judge quality based on country of origin.

Im using Creek and Nad which were made in China and they are great.

I agree that you really have to judge items on individual merit.

Steve

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Quote:
Hi

Im using Creek and Nad which were made in China and they are great.

Steve

I read an article, a few months back, regarding audiophile equipment and where it is manufactured. It was surprising, to me, how many of the hi-end audio brands come out of China. Business is business.
Creek was mentioned in the article and it was stated that the Evo models are made in China but the Classic and Destiny lines are still designed and built in England. FWIW.

ROLO46
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Hi Bryston , welcome to this forum.
Your distressed english is a delight
It is easier to comprehend than some of the tortured text favoured by some of our senior contributors!
(You are not a follower of Borat or Sacha Baron Cohen I presume).
Quality of construction and design is an infinite slope.
Rubbish can be made by anybody.
At the moment Iam refurbishing a classic British Valve amp
of the 1960's. The Radford SC22 Control and Monoblock amps MA25 X 2.
Their original construction features point to point wiring,
rudimentary soldering, and basic metal bending skills.
But the amps themselves (MA25) are quite magical,possibly from the quality of the transformers.
A lot of early Hi-Fi design advance came from British designers,
Peter Walker was one ,so was Arthur Radford.
Their background had been in wartime Radar/Sonar/Communication etc.
This manufacturing was based on 40's production technique
Every now and then a product can transcend its manufacture
and this is the Radford MA25.
It could be made again in a modern Chinese shop and look
impressive but I doubt it would sound as good without Arthurs transformers.
However the latest variant of Peters Quad Electrostatic are made wholly in China and are in their best incarnation yet!
Roger

bryston
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Dear Friends or hi-fi adepts... being like a sleepy valley we rather are going wrong to seek more in detailed and less in quality but all is passed. As seeing swinging sixties and some great reward that time as Revox, Teac, Studer-reelers and Grundig are down nowadays. I confirm some technologies and sectrets of engineering were known by chinese workers but there's something behind the mirror glass. I mean that keeps getting right for Nad and some resonable priced devices but imagine as who made McIntosh or Meridian better then their original masters in US and UK. I always respected labour of men in electronics over the world but fact if fact. By the way we stay in touch very often in european and US makers... but where 70s and 80s lord as japan standart of quality? Nothing to stay... why? They good, resonable and feeling well and coloured, non-nuanced, undetailed, kinky and freaky in sound quality... I listened many of them from $500 to $5000 and saw morning gray and cold dew in sound only. Even best Accuphase which everyday forces doing thrill many hi-fi makers sinks down. We find what we can analyze and belove in deep culture for music.

cyclebrain
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DUP is that you?

bryston
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Who's DUP - not knowing for me...

I saw it's not very interesting I'm told but one moment please dear friends... If someone remembered days of Japan glory days in hi-fi when you imagined they did "best" and "fast" but roots from easy hi-fi doing run from that period. Of course Sony and Teac did good but for whom? Listening Arabesque, Donna Summer and Dee D.Jackson on Japan hi-fi were cool even in 80s but what's about Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" or Beethoven's "9th symphony"? No words. Today is complicated to choose the good ones even from nature-european assemblers no saying about US and Canada. But what about German as Accustik arts, Audionet, Lindemann and Trigon... sorry for ReVox was down to intelligent room devices and plasma TVs as Marantz did once upon a time. Sad but true. Holding the flag to help Electrocompaniet from northern and polar Norway and old-kind England in face of trully yours Rega.

commsysman
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It hardly matters WHERE something is assembled, as long as good design and high quality control standards are an integral part of the process.

The obvious reason for assembly in China is to lower prices, but that does not mean that standards of quality are nescessarily low.

bryston
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I don't know about Taiwan, Singopour, Malayzia etc. Speach is about Chinese goods in hi-fi only. I've seen once a device that my friend as a service master showed. Shocking... Made in PRC. The printed plates were held on chewing gum inside without screws and metal parts. I don't want spell the brand which did it. Very famous. I consider that maybe a pirat good and built underground without permission an official brand top-managing. But who's right? I think who bought this crazy device and lost his money won't be happy knowing inside his cd-player. But money were big because it scaled like hi-end in over.

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That was an audiophile vibration dampner. Not mere chewing gum. come on, what's the difference between that and a magic wood block or and AC outlet that has sound qualitys. Both are hoaxes. Did you LISTEN to the special mounting system? How can you rush to judgement about it not being effective? come on. Let your ears decide, not your brain. In Audio, all things are possible.

bryston
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Never mind. It's no difference who's building but I wonder if manufacturer gave approve to his chinese partners making his devices on foreign plants who's watching this business process? As oldies said still water runs deep... it's a problem everywhere to spoil the quality of hi-fi but the prices must be as for a luxury good... I already wrote that tendency over world if not concidering germany companies and US ADCOM. Sorry I've forgotten saying respect for Parasound. No shame for chinese but for their company managers who's closing their eyes to stuck much money.

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